Well, we're going to look in
Matthew chapter five here. A right view of God's law. The Lord here is continuing in
these verses to set straight the errors that the people had
been taught by the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes
concerning the law. as we read last week in the righteousness
of God's law. The people of Israel were under
the tutelage of false shepherds. The prophets spoke of that in
the Old Testament, talking about how there'd be false shepherds
that would come along. And they taught the people wrong
concerning the law of Moses. And when you look back on it,
If you ever study any of this, and if you probably haven't,
I haven't either. Really, I've studied some of the old Jewish
writers. And I know one of my favorite
commentaries is John Gill's commentary. And John Gill, he studied these
old Jewish writers and how they interpreted the law. And they
had the scriptures, they had the books of Moses, the prophets,
the Psalms. And they had a tradition that
rose up from that. It's like writing commentaries,
but 99% of it was error. And it's hard to believe that
it would be that way, but it is. But basically, they taught
the people that salvation and a right relationship with God
was by your works, by your efforts to keep the law of God. And so,
in order to give themselves false comfort, they didn't call it
false, but it was false comfort, they devised ways to interpret
the law so that they could, in their own minds, justify themselves,
even in their sinfulness. And I thought about this, it's
kinda like our legal system today. There's so many different ways,
there's so many avenues, and what do they call that, Robert,
in the law where you can go around it? There's a name for that and
I can't think of it right now. Huh? They can circumvent it. And that's what they would do.
They would interpret it in a way so that they could say, well,
I've kept the law. And so Christ is dealing with
those issues here. But here's the key point that
he makes. Since the law not only applies to the outward act of
sinfulness and obedience, it also reaches the heart. The thoughts,
the motives, the intents, the goals. And I always think about
the Apostle Paul when he wrote over in Romans chapter seven. He said in verse nine, for I
was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came,
sin revived and I died. Well, what does he mean by that?
Well, he's saying this, when he was unregenerate, when he
didn't know Christ, didn't know the extent of his own sinfulness,
he thought that based on his works of the law, that he was
fine. He was saved, he was alive. But
when the commandment came, when the Holy Spirit opened his understanding
to the reality of sin, he said, I died. I saw that the law that
I thought was my salvation actually put its sentence of death upon
me. Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. And that's what Christ
is doing here. None of us can produce the righteousness
that God demands for salvation by our works of the law. None
of us. And he picks out specific issues
here that they use to twist the law. And he shows them you can't
do that because you're condemning yourself. And they were those
who counted themselves righteous and despised others. And then
another thing is this. We who are in Christ, washed
in his blood. That's what the scripture puts
it that way. That's a metaphor for the fact
that Christ, having our sins imputed to him, died for those
sins on the cross, shedding his blood as the full payment of
the justice of God. And the metaphor for that, and
it's a good metaphor if you understand it, we're washed in the blood. We sing songs about that. You
know, what can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
And then another metaphor for that, we're clothed in his righteousness. That's not a literal piece of
clothing that we wear. It's not saying that it's just
something on the outside of us. But it was something done by
the Lord without us, because he's the substitute, he's the
surety, he's the redeemer. And so it's imputed to us, that's
the biblical word for it, which means it's charged to our account.
And so we're free from the law. In other words, the law cannot
condemn us. Now does that give us leave to break the law? Absolutely
not. In fact, from the work of Christ
on the cross as our representative, our surety, our substitute, our
redeemer, we have life within. And that's the new birth. That's
the Holy Spirit's work to change us within. Most of what religion
talks about as change has nothing to do with the reality of the
new birth. Most people, when they think
about changing, they think about outward reformation. And there
may be outward reformations, and those may be needed. Nobody's
denying that. But for the most part, it doesn't
take a work of the Holy Spirit to bring about outward reformations. False religion can do that. You
know, false religion can make, I've always said it, it can make
a drunk put down the bottle. And you know that's true. It
can make a drug addict get cleaned up. The 12-step program. And those things are good for
people physically, but not spiritually, because they usually lead to
false religion. And you know, I think about when
Christ talked to the Pharisees and he was exposing them. And
he called them whited sepulchers, which means on the outside you
look pretty good, but on the inside you're full of dead people's
bones, is what he said. And he said, you go about to
make converts. And that's what false religion
does. And he said, when you get them, you make them twofold more
the child of hell than you are. Now what does he mean by that?
It means they're ensconced then in false religion. which is worse
than they were before. There's a parable in the book
of Luke where it talks about when the strong man leaves and
somebody else comes in and sweeps the house. And that's talking
about how you get cleaned up with false religion and you get
ensconced into that. And boy, that's where the problem
really lies, in the hearts and the minds of people. They become
so in, entrenched in their self-righteousness. And it takes a work of the Spirit
of God to blow us out of that, like the dynamite, because I
know you've been there and I've been there. Well, what happens
when that Spirit comes within our lives? He replaces that old
legal, sinful motive of obedience with a new motive. And it's the
motive of grace. Grace, grace, grace. It's a motive
of love. And that's a two-fold thing,
because it means realizing the love of God for us. And we're
gonna talk more about that, Lord willing, next week. The love
of God for us. Think about how much God loves
us, who are his children. And think about it this way.
We didn't earn his love, and we don't deserve his love. Even
when we were enemies, Christ died for the ungodly. Herein
is love, not that we loved him, but that he loved us. That's
a motive. That's a powerful motive to be
obedient, to want to glorify God with our lives, in our behavior,
all of that. And then gratitude. Thank you,
Lord, for saving my soul. That's what it is. And so, having been taught wrongly
by these religious leaders, the people needed to understand that
as God's word calls for that external obedience, to try to
be good people outwardly, do right, and all of that, and seek
to be conformed to the letter of law, but the law requires
also a perfection in the heart. It forbids wrong thinking. Not just wrong doing, but wrong
thinking. It forbids wrong motives. A person
trying to be saved by their works, that's a low, evil motive in
God's sight. And so, Christ, when he shows
us Christ, that's when that changes. That's an inner change. Having
that inner change by the power of the Spirit does not eradicate
the sinful things within us. That old nature, as people call
it, of sin. And that's wherein lies the battle. A battle within our hearts. Lord,
Lord save me from myself. That's what we need, don't we?
Salvation from ourselves. And I've often said, just like
if you wanna, I've got a three word description of the Christian
life. Our standing before God is perfect. Because our standing before God
is in Christ. And he's perfect. A perfect righteousness. And that never changes. No matter
what change we go through here on earth, that never changes. Think about that. Not one iota. I might wake up one morning and
feel terrible and just go through the house just like an idiot. I might wake up one morning and
open my Bible and read it and just think I'm going to heaven.
But my standing before God never changes because I'm in Christ. Jesus Christ the same yesterday,
today, and forever. What a glorious thing to know.
And we only know that by faith in God's word. And then secondly
is our state. Our state here on this earth
is that we are born again people. We know the truth. God has turned
the light on. He's revealed himself to us.
We live and walk by faith. But the third part of the Christian
life is struggle. And it's a struggle from day
one, and it's a struggle every day, and it'll be a struggle
when we draw our last breath and go to be with the Lord, because
there's a warfare within. So understand that. Well, with
that in view, Christ continues to show them a right view of
God's law. And look at verse 29. He makes
this statement. Let me read verses 27, 28. I've
already dealt with those verses, but read them in this context.
He says in verse 27, you've heard it was said by them of old, thou
shalt not commit adultery, but I say unto you that whosoever
looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with
her already in his heart. So the fact that I have not committed
physical adultery does not relieve me of that sin because of the
thoughts. the thoughts of the mind and
the heart. That makes me an adulterer. I thank God I'm a forgiven adulterer. I'm a sinner, folks. Did you
know that? You're a sinner. And so he says
in verse 29, now listen to this. He says, if thy right eye offend
thee, pluck it out, cast it from thee, For it is profitable for
thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy
whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend
thee, cut it off, cast it from thee, for it is profitable for
thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy
whole body should be cast into hell." Now, what in the world
is he saying to us? Well, keep in mind the context.
What's he showing these people? He's showing these people the
impossibility of getting rid of this problem of sin within
us by anything we do. And he's using a metaphor here.
This is not to be taken literally. The Lord never requires us to
disfigure or maim ourselves as if this could take care of the
problem of sin within us. And you know why? Because he
wouldn't take care of it. You can gouge out your right
eye, but you still got that left one to sin with. You could gouge
out both eyes, and you still got that memory. Isn't that right? You could cut off your right
hand, but you still have your left one. Cut off both of them.
You know, there have been extreme false religionists who have thought
that they could maim themselves, like a certain Catholic priest
who castrated themselves, thinking that that's gonna take care of
the problem. It won't take care of the problem of lust. Crazy
things like that. But gouging out our eyes or cutting
off our hands or our feet will not make us righteous before
God. As I said, because we still have
that old memory. But what's the Lord doing here?
He's stressing that if we're seeking righteousness and holiness
by our works of the law, we had better be willing to go the nth
degree. And it still won't be far enough. Remember what he said in Matthew
5 20. Unless you have a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness
of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall in no wise enter into
the kingdom of heaven. Now certainly, the sins of the
eyes, the sins of the hands are to be avoided. We're to fight
against those. We don't want to put our evil
thoughts into action. And that's stress because we
don't want to bring scandal upon the gospel, upon the word of
God, upon the church, all of that. But anything, and he's
stressing this, anything that hinders us from resting in Christ
must be removed. And what does that mean? That
means don't physically cut it off. It means repent of it. If
there's anything that keeps me from looking to and resting in
Christ alone for my whole salvation, I'm to cut it off in the sense
of repenting of it. And he does stress that. And
you know, there's a lot of people who claim to believe the gospel,
but they haven't come to repentance. And it could be, you know, it's
kind of like what he told the disciples about the Pharisees.
He said they close their eyes and they shut their ears lest
they be converted. They don't want to be converted.
They don't want to stand with Christ against the world. They
don't wanna stand with Christ against, for example, family. Family's a big part of the hindrance. Lost members of our family. But
we love our families, don't we? Our natural, earthly families.
We do. But if that keeps me, if my thoughts
towards my family keeps me from looking to Christ alone, cut
it off. In other words, repent of that.
And that doesn't mean you don't have to speak to them and deal
with them and even love them. But it means you cannot let them
hinder you from looking to Christ alone for salvation. And I believe
that's here. Christ will have no rival. But
he's showing these people, look, this thing of salvation by works,
don't you really understand what it means? What you'd have to
do? Paul said that to the Galatians.
He said, you that desire to be under the law, don't you hear
what the law says? You know, the law does not say
do your best. Well, does that mean I'm not
to try to do my best? No, I'm to try to do my best. But the
law doesn't say do your best. The law says do it all perfectly. without any taint or any corruption
of sin. In other words, if you're going
to fight the sin of adultery, don't just fight it in the outward
sense, which you should do, but fight it in the mind too. Now
how are you going to get rid of that? Evil thoughts. You know what I'm saying, don't
you? You know what you're experiencing. There are thoughts that'll shoot
across our minds, and don't you ever wonder, where'd that come
from? Evil thoughts. The first, I mean,
all of those things. So see what this is saying. This
is what Christ is doing here. He said, listen, here's the law.
Now, here's how you should view it. So he uses this metaphor here.
But it won't take care of the problem. He's not telling them
that. And it wouldn't. Well, look at verse 31. Now he
goes into the issue of divorce. And I know this is sensitive
to a lot of people because there's a lot of divorce today. Listen
to what he says. Verse 31. It hath been said,
whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing
of divorcement. Back, what they'd done back then,
they had, if a man just decided he wanted to get rid of his wife,
he had to sign a paper. a bill of divorcement, writing
of divorcement, and that was it. And if you did that, then
you weren't committing sin. Well, that's wrong, he says,
but I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving
for the cause of fornication, which was adultery, immoral behavior,
caused her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her
that is divorced, committeth adultery. Now, here's the original
law of divorce in the old covenant, is found back in Deuteronomy.
I've got that listed in your lesson. If you wanna read about
it, Deuteronomy 24. But we need to be clear on this
issue. Divorce is sinful. It's wrong and there's no way
to make it any less sinful or make it right in the eyes of
God. In God's eyes, the only way one
who is married can be free to marry another is the death of
one of the spouses. Paul brought that up in Romans
chapter seven. But under the civil laws of the
old covenant, and if you read, I've got this listed in your
lesson, if you read about it in Matthew 19 and Mark 10, the
Lord brought this up, how Moses, talking about the law, allowed
a man or woman to be divorced in the case of adultery or immoral
behavior or abandonment. And he said this, he said, it's
because of the hardness of our hearts. And what he's saying
is because of our sinfulness, the law allowed that under the
civil law of Moses. Now does that make it right in
the eyes of God? No. But you know, under that
law of the covenant, the old covenant, there were penalties
that were hard. For example, breaking the Sabbath,
the penalty was death. Murder, the penalty was death.
And these things were realities in their lives every day. So
when he said, he said that Moses allowed for this because of the
sinfulness of man. We live in a sinful world. Sometimes
a couple that's married, the man or the woman, sometimes they
cannot control the actions and the hearts of the other. Somebody
takes off. What's a person gonna do? You
can't change their hearts. And so it was allowed. But that
doesn't make it any less sinful in God's eyes. God instituted
the marriage union to be until, what do we say in the marriage
union? Until death do us part. That's what we say. And so it
was sinful. So when someone was divorced
and remarried, it was adultery. You say, well, they're adulterers.
Well, okay. Now does that mean they can't
be saved? If that's what it means, then none of us can be saved.
Remember what he said back here in Matthew 5 verse 27. You've heard that it was said
by them of old, thou shalt not commit adultery, but I say in
you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after hath committed
adultery with her already. Now what does that make us? You
say, well, they're adulterers. So are we. What are we? We're sinners, folks. We're forgiven
adulterers, if we're in Christ. But because of this messed up,
cursed world, sometimes these things are necessary. I said
that to a man one time, and he liked to sucked all the air out
of the room. I said, really? Think about it. Now does that mean that we're
to put a stigma on somebody who's divorced and remarried? Absolutely
not. No more than you should put a
stigma on me because I'm a forgiven adulterer. Does that mean a man
who's divorced and remarried can't hold office in the church?
I don't believe the Bible teaches that. There are some who do.
They get it out of First Timothy and places like that where they
talk about a man's to be the husband of one wife. I believe
that's against polygamy. But what I'm saying is, here's
the point. We can't get away from sin in
this world. In our thoughts, in our actions,
we can't get away from it. That's why Paul described us.
You know what we are? We're wretched people. Romans
7, 24, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this
body of death? And I've seen so many situations.
where a believer has been divorced for whatever reason, and remarried
another person, and they either were a believer or became a believer,
and they're happy, and it's a union. They both worship the Lord together.
That's great. You say, well, they're adulterers.
Yes, so am I. So are you. And we can't get
away from it. But what Christ is telling them
here, If you think that you can just sign a paper, put away your
wife or the wife put away her husband, and then that relieves
you of your responsibility so that you can say, well, now I'm
righteous in God's sight, you're just fooling yourself. No, sir. The only way that a sinner can
be made righteous in God's sight and we're all sinners is through
the imputed righteousness of Christ. And that's it. And Christ, the marriage union
between Christ and his people, is a marriage that can never
be dissolved. Because Christ will never put
away his bride. Isn't that right? Who is his
bride? The church. The elect of God. He paid our dowry. He satisfied
justice. He bought us lock, stock, and
barrel, and he'll never, never leave us. He'll never put us
away. And you know what? We'll never
leave him. And you know why? Because he
has the power to do what we cannot do. I've seen situations where
a husband says, well, he just doesn't love her anymore, and
she can't change his heart, she doesn't have the power to change
his heart, or vice versa. The wife says she just doesn't
love him anymore. And of course, you know people are crazy anyway,
so they don't even know what love is. But you know what, Christ has
the power to change our hearts. He has the power to keep us desiring
Him and from leaving Him. And it's His power, because there
are times, my friend, you know this is true, that if it weren't
for His preserving power, preserving love and grace and power, we'd
leave Him. But we can't, because He's given
us a new heart. to love the Savior. Well, I hope that's clear. I
know people are gonna argue about this till doomsday. People are
gonna say, well, I don't believe that or I don't agree with that.
That's okay. Do what you want. That's what
people do anyway. All right, let's go to verse
33. He says, Again, he says, you've heard
that it hath been said by them of old, thou shalt not forswear
thyself, but thou shalt perform unto the Lord thine oath. Now
he's talking about taking oath. This was another area that the
Pharisees had taught them wrong. And listen, a lot of times it's
hard for us to look back on this history and say, well, how could
people think like that? But they did. And I imagine if
they were alive today, they'd look at us and say, how can y'all
think like y'all do today, you know? So look at, he's talking
about thine oath. Verse 34, but I say unto you,
swear not at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne,
nor by earth, for it is his footstool, neither by Jerusalem, for it
is the city of the great king, neither shalt thou swear by thy
head, which means they're your life, because thou canst not
make one hair white or black, And if you dye your hair, that
doesn't include you here. But let your communication be
yea, yea, nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these cometh to
evil. Of course, a lot of people look at that and say, well, we're
never to swear oaths, but the Bible doesn't forbid all oath
swearing. But here's what happened. They
had devised a way of thinking that said this. Now, if I swear
an oath by the Lord, I'd better keep it, else I'll be in danger
of hellfire. So, what do you do? Well, let's
swear by something lesser than God. Let's swear by heaven. Let's
swear by, what does he say there? He said, swear by heaven. Let's swear by Jerusalem, the
holy city. Let's, the city of the great
king. Let's swear by our own lives. Let's declare our oaths
on something lesser than God. Therefore, if we break the oath,
we're okay. We're okay. We're righteous.
Christ said, oh no. All those things you're swearing
by, you can connect them right with God. You swear by heavens? Well, who's the God of heaven?
Who created the heaven? Swear by Jerusalem? Well, that's
the holy city of God in that sense. Swear by your own life,
well who gave you that life? It's all connected to God. What
he's saying is this, tell the truth, keep your word, period. That's the lesson there. And
if you ever tell a lie, if you ever break a promise, then the
law brings you in as a sinner. And nothing's gonna relieve you
of that Well, where does that leave us? You ever told a lie? Hey, you ever thought a lie?
You ever broken a promise? Somebody says, well, yeah, but
I didn't foresee all the obstacles. Well, maybe. Be people of your
word, that's what he's saying, yay, yay, and nay, nay, that's
what he means there. You don't have to swear, just
be honest, be true. The law requires perfect honesty,
perfect promise keeping. Aren't you glad that the Bible
says that all the promises of God are in Christ, yea, and in
Christ, amen? He never broke or breaks a promise
to his people. That's our hope, isn't it? I may promise something to you,
and I may break that promise. It may be I didn't foresee all
the obstacles or couldn't provide all the means. Maybe I had good
intentions, but my friend, the law doesn't recognize just good
intentions. Do and live, disobey and die,
that's the law. But he never breaks a promise.
And I think about that passage in Romans 3 and verse 4 I put
in your lesson. The Bible says, let God be true
and every man a liar. Our salvation, our standing before
God according to the law, is based on his faithfulness, his
truthfulness, not our own. Now does that give me leave to
go around being a liar all the time? No. I should be an honest
person. But honesty, as far as salvation
and a relationship with God, begins with being honest before
God. And that says, God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. I have no hope of salvation or
righteousness based upon my own honesty. It's all in Christ. And that's what he's pointing
to as he goes through these right views of the law. Okay.